The mortician, p.13
The Mortician, page 13
part #3 of Grimm Tales of Smoky Vale Series
“Mort, please.”
Without a word, Mort carried me to the bedroom, where he gently placed me on the bed. I reached out to pull him down on top of me, but he took my hand and kissed it.
“I promised not to touch you, and I’m going to keep that promise. Go to sleep, Cass.”
“But, Mort—”
He pressed his lips hard to mine. “I’ve never wanted to break my word as badly as I do right now, but this is important to you, so I’ll leave. We’ll talk in the morning and finally sort this out between us. We’ve got to because I can’t stay away from you anymore. Good night, Cass.”
I didn’t how to take this unexpected turn of events. At the door, he turned. “By the way, you were the most beautiful boy on that stage tonight.” He closed the door. What the fuck had just happened?
Beautiful. He’d called me beautiful.
A slow smile spread on my face as warmth radiated through my body. I fell asleep with those words echoing through my mind.
He’d called me beautiful.
Chapter 15
Mort
“Fucking hell, you scared the piss out of me.”
I scrambled to my feet and faced the reverend, who’d just opened his front door to find me sitting on the porch. His hand was trembling so hard it was a wonder he hadn’t spilled his coffee. Dressed in only a pair of sweats that hung low on his hips, he looked damn good for a reverend. I always imagined people of the clergy being gray and frumpy. There was nothing frumpy about the man in front of me with cum gutters I envied. His nipples were pierced too and not with small studded bars either but rings I could hook a finger through.
“You’re the reverend?” I asked. Whenever he’d come around to the clubhouse, I was always at work, so I didn’t know the man.
He took a sip from his cup and walked past me to the mailbox at the end of the drive. His pants were way below the dimples in his back, showing off the top curve of his ass cheeks, and just above the swell was a tattoo. A fucking blackwork minimalist tramp stamp.
“No, my twin’s actually on the inside waiting for you.” He chuckled while checking out the mail. “He had a premonition last night that you’d show up on our doorstep with questions.”
I let out a breath. If he’d turned out to be the reverend, I would’ve thought this was Booker playing some sick twisted joke at my expense. Except I didn’t have time for this. Last night, I’d promised Cass we would speak, and I still needed to work some of my shit out. Hence, I’d woken up at the ass crack of dawn and stopped by Booker’s to get directions to the reverend’s house. Booker had nearly kicked my ass for waking him so early, but the fucker wasn’t able to pull one over on me. He’d already been up. From downstairs, I’d heard Zak and Fable getting it on upstairs. Fuck, they were loud. But I already knew that from the one night we’d all met up and fucked the boys together right there in the living room.
“Well, come on in.” I followed him inside and closed the door behind me, then continued to the kitchen, where he settled at the table and put down the cup of coffee.
“So where’s the reverend?” I asked.
He held up a hand for me to be quiet and gestured at the chair opposite him. “Sit. Patience.”
I sat and waited. The man, who looked the farthest thing from a reverend’s brother, much less a reverend, skipped through his mail, separating it into two piles. When he was satisfied, he took a long sip from his coffee and smiled at me.
“So to what do my brother and I owe this pleasure?”
I frowned. “Where’s the reverend? He’s the one I want to talk to. Booker said he helped him work some shit out with one of his boyfriends.”
“Good, glad to see that worked out, though Booker probably gives me more credit than I deserve.”
“Wait a minute.” He just stared at me, and my face burned when it dawned on me that I’d been tricked. I jerked to my feet, scowling at him. “I don’t have time for this bullshit. I came here expecting someone who could help me, not play games.”
“No, you came here with your preconceived notions of what I was like,” he said calmly. “And as soon as that didn’t fit your idea, you’re willing to bail. Booker pretty much had the same reaction.” He heaved a sigh. “It gets overwhelmingly tedious.”
I cringed. Was I doing the same thing in having certain preconceived notions about what a partner was supposed to be like and using that to squeeze Cass out of my life because he didn’t fit into that mold?”
“Just so I’m clear”—I gripped the back of my chair—“you are a minister of religion who uses the Bible and all that?”
“Would it make you feel better to see my certificate of ordination?”
Although he offered, I got the impression that if I said yes, he’d show me the other side of the door.
“I guess Booker’s word is good enough.” I sat back down but eyed him warily. His long blond hair tumbled down his shoulders, red marks like hickeys covered his chest.
“Getting into your issues sometime today would be nice,” he quipped. “And by the way, lusting is a sin.”
I glanced away from him. “I’m not lusting after you.”
The man chuckled. “You’re so uptight you can’t even take a joke.”
Damn, I needed to get out of here as soon as possible.
“There’s this guy—”
“There’s always a guy.” When I stared at him, he waved at me. “Continue.”
“We’ve been fuck—having sex for quite a while, but he sleeps with everybody.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“Hell, yes, it’s a problem.”
“Why? How would you classify your relationship?”
“We had sex.”
“And what else?”
“Just the sex.”
“So what’s the problem? It wasn’t good sex?”
I scowled at him. “It was. Pretty good. The best, if I’m honest.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Weren’t you listening? He sleeps with everyone else.”
He shrugged. “But based on the way you’re going around the question, you’re not in a relationship. Would you like to be?”
“I need to start at the beginning.”
“Yeah, that’s always a good place to start.”
I placed my forearms on the table and told him how I first met Cass and what had happened that night.
“Sounds hot.” The reverend sipped his coffee. “Did you at least join in?”
“No.” Why had I even come here? “Look, I don’t just sleep with anyone. While Cass and I were doing this, I never slept with anyone else.”
“Never?”
“No, I tried. It’s just not my MO. I had a wife. I was faithful to her all the time we were married. It was important to me.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I came from a traditional family.”
“Now that I couldn’t tell,” he deadpanned.
I scowled. “Weren’t you just talking about stereotypes?”
“Just checking. You see how annoying it is? Go on.”
I gave him a long hard look, then continued. “We had a perfect family—my dad, my mom, my brother, and I. We went to church every Sunday, ate dinner together, and everything was great. Until I found out it was nothing but the perfect lie.”
“Who cheated?” His voice no longer held that ridiculing lilt. He was listening to what I had to say.
“My mom did. While my father was at work, she had sex with the neighbor, and I found out about it. I was supposed to be at a friend’s house but returned home early because we argued.” I closed my eyes, the whole scene playing out in front of me like it was yesterday. “They were doing it right there on the kitchen table while he called Mom all sorts of names while he was pounding her. And I could tell she loved it.”
“How old were you?”
“Ten.”
“Shit, I’m sorry. No little boy should witness their mother in that position.”
“It would’ve been bad enough if it had been my dad, but the neighbor? She begged me not to tell my father, and I didn’t because I didn’t want our family to break up. Only it wasn’t the last time she did it, and she was never truly sorry. After two years of keeping the secret, I couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t take sitting across from her at the table, smiling and telling my dad how much she loved him. So, I blurted it all out one night at the dinner table. My father couldn’t even find it in himself to get upset with her. He loved her too much and let her stay.”
“And you disagreed with him for doing that?”
“Of course.” I slammed my fists on the table. “He should’ve put her out. She destroyed a good man. He was never quite the same after he found out, but he kept her there. It was like living in Hell. My mother hated me for blabbing her secret. She eventually left him. Do you know what happened to him when she left? He didn’t even last a year before he died. Just gave up on life.”
“You and your father were close,” he surmised.
“Very. I looked up to him. After what my mother did to him, he’d always tell me to never love anyone completely but to keep back a part of myself.”
“Spoken like a man who’d been hurt by someone he cared about, but his view on love was skewed. It’s Mort, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but it wasn’t skewed. I got married, thought I’d have the same dream that managed to elude me as a child. We were young and in love. We wanted kids. I couldn’t get her pregnant, so she slept with my brother.”
“Damn. That must have hurt.”
“And I knew my father was right, but like a fool, I took her back. She begged me for another chance, and I did. A year later, she was pregnant, but I knew it couldn’t be mine, because we’d found out I couldn’t get her pregnant. I dragged it out of her that it was my brother’s, but he was no good for her. I decided to stay to help her raise the baby, but it never stopped. She kept going back to him, spreading her legs for him, and the worst part about it was that everyone else in the neighborhood knew about it before I did.” I gave a bitter laugh. “They’d laugh or snicker when they saw me, but I didn’t know until later what they found so funny. My wife was fucking my brother behind my back. She made me look like a fool in front of everyone, and that… that was the last straw. Why should I open myself back up to something like that?”
He was silent, sipping his coffee. “So that night you met Cass. What would you have done had your brothers not interfered and gangbanged him?”
My nostrils flared. “Jeez, do you have to say it like that?”
“Yes, I believe you need to hear and accept what happened. That’s the only way you’re not going to cringe when someone mentions it.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’d have had sex with him,” he said flatly.
“Yeah.”
“And then what?”
I shrugged. “I can’t know now.”
“You know what I think?”
“I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”
“I think you would’ve just found some other silly excuse to avoid being with Cass because the truth is that you’ve been hurt by people you trusted in this way before, and you’re afraid it’ll happen again. Therefore, you don’t give yourself the chance to fall in love with anyone. You equate what you have right now with Cass as sex when deep down you know the truth. It stopped being just sex a long time ago, and that’s why you have a problem with Cass sleeping with other men. Because you’ve started to fall in love with him.”
I glowered. “I’m not in love.”
“How can you be? You’ve blocked yourself from loving anyone, and my guess is that you see Cass as a potential threat. That’s why you’re pushing him away.”
“And the constant urge to punch anyone who mentions him or what they want to do with him?”
“That equates to you being a violent asshole.”
“What the hell!” I stabbed a finger on the table. “I want to punch the fuckers out because they’ve touched what’s mine. He’s mine, goddammit, and I’m not going to share him with them. He’s mine.”
The reverend had a satisfied smile on his face. “I’m going to take that ‘he’s mine’ Neanderthal talk as what we normal folks mean as ‘I love you.’”
My heart hammered in my chest, working overtime.
“I can’t love, Cass.” There was still too much I didn’t know about him, but I had certain affections for him. Strong affections.
“What’s he like?” he surprised me by asking. “He’s that redhead I caught a glimpse of once, isn’t he? He seems like a nice boy.”
“He is,” I said, then glared at him. “Did he offer to blow you?”
He chuckled. “Like I’d tell you that. I’d end up with my brain splattered on my kitchen walls. Take it from me, Mort, some things are better left alone, and you’ll have to do that.”
“You don’t get it.”
“Make me.”
“He lives in the clubhouse. My brothers make teasing remarks. Crude remarks about what they want to do to him. They touch him and shit. How can I live around that?”
“I have two things to say.” He lifted one finger. “Number one, if living in the clubhouse with him is such hardship, why not move out? I know you all don’t have to live on the compound. You’ll be less angry in that situation.”
That… could probably work. If the teasing wasn’t a constant thing I had to deal with, I’d be better equipped to answer the ones that were made here and there.
A second finger joined the first. “And my next question is, do you believe that if you made it known you and Cass are in a relationship that your brothers will still do the things they are currently doing?”
No, they wouldn’t. Maybe one or two assholes, but there is no way they would touch another biker’s property, whether it be gears or guys. They’d never pulled that shit before, hitting on other bikers’ partners.
“I think you have your solution right there.” The reverend got to his feet. “Like I said, everything would be solved if you just make your intentions clear to everyone, but for god’s sake, start with Cass. From what you’ve told me, you probably have the young man confused.”
The reverend placed his cup into the sink and eyed me. “I’m going to take a shower. If you’re still here when my prayer meeting group arrives, I’ll be putting you in charge of the sermon. You can let yourself out.”
The reverend’s words entered one ear and went through the next. I barely noticed him leaving. Could it honestly be that simple? All I needed to do was make my intentions known to Cass that we were together now. Exclusive. No touching other men and no other men touching his junk. Except for work. They weren’t allowed to touch for work anyway.
He’d told me he could be faithful. Should I believe him? I’d thought Dana was such a safe bet. She’d been a virgin when we first got together. Cass was a wild boy. Would he even allow me to tame him? The prospect sounded appealing. And if anyone disrespected him while we were together, they could be persuaded to change their way of thinking or swallow whatever the hell they were thinking.
I rose to my feet and pushed back the chair beneath the table. Walking out of the house, I checked my watch. Shit, I didn’t have time to get back to the clubhouse to talk to Cass as I’d planned. Perched on my bike, I dialed Cass’s phone number, but it went to voicemail. I didn’t leave a message but called again.
“What do you want, Mort?” Jamie answered the phone.
“I want to talk to Cass, Jamie. Where is he?”
“He can’t come to the phone right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s in the shower.”
“You’re lying,” I growled into the phone. “Give him the phone now.”
“You’re not my Daddy.” Goddammit, Grimm really needed to get that mouthy brat under control.
“Look, this is serious stuff I need to talk to Cass about.”
“At least have the decency to talk to him face-to-face and not over the phone. Good-bye, Mort.”
The little evil prick ended the call. He also turned off Cass’s phone, so the calls went straight to voicemail. Frustrated, I pulled up Grimm’s number.
“What’s up?” he answered gruffly.
“You’re either going to get your boy’s nose permanently out of my business, or I’m going to cut it off and save you the trouble.”
Grimm groaned. “What did he do now?”
“He’s manning Cass’s phone, won’t let me talk to him. He’s a bad influence, Grimm.”
“I think hanging around Jamie and Fable is giving Cass a backbone. That’s a good thing. I take it you’ve finally worked through the issues you’ve been having with Cass?”
“I would if your boy would take his spiteful nose out of my affairs.”
“You know he’s just overprotective where Cass is concerned. Doesn’t want you to take advantage of his friend. That’s what good friends do.”
“Get him to back off, Grimm.”
“Fine, I’m on it. But if you don’t do right by Cass, I’m letting him off his leash again.”
Chapter 16
Cass
“Damn, Cass, are you helping or making the situation worse?” Sunny bumped me out of the way and expertly removed the blackening pancakes from the skillet.
“Oh, my god, I’m sorry.” I stepped back to let her salvage breakfast for the bikers. I strained my ears for the familiar baritone of Mort’s voice, but so far, I hadn’t heard him, and my stomach was in knots.
“Your head’s all over the place the last few days,” she muttered. “You’re even more scatterbrained than usual.”
“He’s not been getting his usual fix of dicks.” Her friend, Brandy, giggled from where she was pouring cups of coffee. They usually hung out at parties or away from the clubhouse, but every so often, Brandy stayed the night, and they’d get it on beneath the sheets with the lights off.
“Well, grab a biker and get that problem dealt with ASAP.” Sunny elbowed me in my side.
“I can’t do that.”
